


How to Save a Life

by MissGeorgieTate



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Gen, Graham's Alcoholism, Graham's Past, Home Farm Owners, Secrets of the Tates, The Tates, What is Joe hiding?, Zoe Tate (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 11:35:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15509055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissGeorgieTate/pseuds/MissGeorgieTate
Summary: On the eve of the anniversary of Graham's wife's death, Joe is concerned when Graham goes missing.





	How to Save a Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stormkeeper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormkeeper/gifts).



> The following fic features Jean Tate Junior, fifteen years old, who is living with Joe and Graham at Home Farm. Her best efforts to help often result in trouble. 
> 
> In this fic, Joe Tate becomes increasingly concerned when Graham doesn't return home and makes preparations to clear the house of alcohol ahead of the anniversary of Cheryl's death.

"Why are we doing this?" Jean asked as she helped Joe pack away the wine. He turned to survey his younger cousin. At fifteen, Jean was almost a replica of her mother, the same dark eyes, neatly curved bob hairstyle with a sweet fringe and the Tate angular cheeks, making her seem more like a sister than a cousin. They were very similar in feature and temperament, much to the village’s dismay, for one Tate was quite enough.  
Joe sighed heavily, irritated. Jean just had to question everything.  
"I just don't like having it on display, okay? I can change my mind, you know?"  
Jean frowned, looking at him expectantly.  
"Is that the real reason? Or are you hoping that I'll believe it because it’s logical?"  
"Jean..."  
"Joe, I'm not a child. You can tell me."  
She folds her arms.  
"You are just like your mother sometimes."  
"Thank you." She hops on the sideboard. "Is it Graham?"  
"Why would you think that?" Joe bluffed, putting another set of bottles into the wine case.  
"Because I found him down here, the other night."  
"We have bedtimes for a reason? Or does that not apply to you?"  
"I was hungry!" Jean groaned, "I came down here to get something to eat and I found him." She gestured to the table, "He was staring at a whisky bottle."  
"Staring, not drinking?"  
Joe raised his eyebrow.  
"No. He wasn't drinking. But he wanted to. I could see it in his face."  
"Why didn't you tell me before?"  
Joe demanded tightly, tapping his mouth with his finger. "I didn't think it was important." Jean reasoned as Joe grabbed his jacket, heading to leave the room.  
"Where are you going?" she followed suit, hot on his heels.  
"To find Graham."  
"Joe!" Jean calls after him.  
"Look, I'm sorry, I know how much he means to you..."  
"You have no idea." Joe scorned, his tone deep, almost mournful.  
"Then tell me!"  
Joe stopped, turning to face her with a strained expression.  
"Tomorrow is the anniversary of Graham's wife's death." Joe explained.  
"What? Graham was married?"  
Joe caught her stunned expression.  
"Yes. He was."  
"But..."  
"It doesn't matter what you think, Jean." Joe told her sternly, "the point is, it happened and Graham...he finds it difficult to cope with."  
"But Graham can cope with anything?" Jean scoffed, "its what he does."  
"Not tomorrow." Joe replied quietly.  
"That's awful." Jean sighed, considering the situation, "what can we do?"  
"Nothing. Just...let him be." He held up his hand.  
"I'll go and see him." Jean moved toward the study but Joe stopped her.  
"Did you not listen to what I said? Leave him be, Jean."  
"Just because you have a limited emotional capacity..."  
"Jean! Let it go, okay?"  
"Alright, alright! I was only trying to help!"  
"Just pack the rest of those bottles away." He instructed, pointing toward them. Jean knew that it was futile to argue when Joe was in one of his moods.  
"Oh and you had a parcel from Japan?" She changed the subject tactfully.  
"That'll be the motifs I ordered for the Sang Jong meeting. Put them in the kitchen, I'll sort them out when I get back."  
"Can I come with you?" Jean pleaded, "I hate being here on my own?"  
Joe tilted his head, observing her sweet smile.  
"Do I have any choice?"  
"No." Jean replied smartly.  
"Come on then, trouble." He ushered her out of the door, the parcel from Japan propped on the table. Graham, having heard the door close, emerges from the office, looking across at the parcel propped on the pool table. Theseus Liquors Ltd.  
"What are you going to do? Ring the police?" Jean asked as Joe closed the door behind them. They had spent the last four hours driving around, with no sign of Graham anywhere. He wasn’t in the village, nor any of his ‘haunts’ as Joe called them. Rather appropriately, Jean thought, for it sometimes felt like Graham was a spectre in the shadows. Joe laid down his keys on the pool table, resting his hands on the edge.  
"Can't ring the police. He's not been missing for 24 hours."  
"Joe?" Jean came to a halt in the kitchen.  
"What is it, Jean?"  
Joe rubbed his face.  
"I didn't..."  
"What?" He yawned, strolling to where she was stood.  
"The bottles, they've been put away."  
She noticed the empty parcel on the counter.  
"Joe," she picked it up, examining the label with a horrified expression, "they weren't motifs."  
"What?" Joe asked dismissively.  
"The parcel. It wasn't motifs. See here? It was a gift. From Sang Jong."  
"What?" Joe made himself a coffee, taking the invoice slip from Jean. "Oh, God..."  
"Why don't you check these things, Jean?"  
"We've left an alcoholic alone in the house with a bottle of the world's most expensive whisky. You stupid! Stupid girl!"  
"What?" Jean gaped, outraged, "this isn't my fault!"  
"No, nothing ever is!" Joe retorted, temper flared. "If he's taken that and got hurt..."  
"It isn't my fault! How was I to know that the parcel contained whisky?!"  
"By looking at the label! Seeing the detail! Surely Graham taught you that! All in the detail!"  
"You don't have to shout at me!"  
She whined, it wasn't her fault and he knew that. "I do," Joe seethed, "because obviously nothing gets through to you!" He wiped his mouth; exhaling sharply. "Okay. Let's just think."  
"You can do that." Jean snapped, "you obviously think I'm useless."  
"I didn't say that."  
"You implied it. So you sort it. That's what we do, isn't it. Our family motto. Sort it.”  
She sauntered out of the kitchen, furious and hurt.  
Joe heard her door slam.  
"Graham," he murmured.  
Joe sat in the kitchen, trying to concentrate, but it was futile. The clock in the hall had just chimed 9:30pm and he was still working. The invoice for the whisky lay ominously beside. It was a generous gift, all $10,000 worth. But that wasn't the point. Graham was missing and he felt as though he had lost his arm.  
Meanwhile he had made a mess of things with Jean. Calling her stupid. It hadn't been her fault, he realised, but he needed someone to blame for his own mistakes.  
He craned his head around, surprised to see the rack bare of bottles. They were sat in crates in the larder when he had checked. Joe couldn't help but wonder if that had been deliberate. He knew that Graham's weakness was whisky.  
Upstairs Jean sat contentedly, doing revision. Exams might be over but Graham had made it very clear that she was to devote some of her spare time to study.  
He was good like that, she thought and a fine teacher. He was stern, but fair. At least sometimes.  
The thought of him struggling was unnerving. He always seemed so together. Silent but certain in his actions, justified in his motives. She had come to respect him in the way that other kids pored over geekdoms of superheroes or Timelords.  
She knew that he had his secrets, that was obvious, but he never allowed them to interfere with his work, not even in her most temperamental states.  
She had insulted him on a number of occasions, trying to avoid doing work, only to be met with a frightening quirk of a dark eyebrow and a very dark expression.  
Then within a few minutes, he would plaster on an unsettling wide grin and act the genial butler type.  
That was when she knew she was in trouble.  
Any attempt to wriggle out of that saw her paying by menial means.  
She had learnt not to offend or attempt to get one over on Graham. He could deal with any situation and was surprisingly capable of dealing with stroppy teenagers.  
She looked back over her exercise book. All through it was little markings in red biro, Graham's signature tight scrawl.  
Surely someone who dealt with situations as Graham did would be capable of handling his drink?  
She had seen the picture, she recalled, in his case. The sad looking woman with the short blonde hair, looking aside at her husband, who seemed distracted.  
It was there in his expression. However tightly he held her hand.  
Jean closed her exercise book and tried to focus on the textbook, but that same doubt kept returning. What if Graham couldn't cope? What if he had taken the whisky? What then?

He didn't return all evening, much to Joe’s concern, but little did they know he had shut himself away in his little apartment away from them. Joe knew not to go looking, or disturb him and for once Jean had adhered to his advice.  
The house settled down for the night, but Graham lay awake, listening to the gentle ticking beside, its sound ominous, reminding him that every second brought him closer to facing the day.  
"Graham?" Joe calls around the house, loudly. The morning had arrived with a fresh breeze that lifted everyone from a stifled slumber. The heat had eased and the sun had taken to hiding behind a mass of cloud. Far from the glorious golden days of the previous week, Joe thought.  
Yet it suited the day. One glance at the calendar, the gentle fleck of pen crossed over 31st July, told him that he had to be prepared. He cast his mind back to the previous night as he made coffee, already smartly dressed. The house felt empty. Life had dwindled and it was frightening. Frightening not to have that solid rock in the background to fall on, or support.  
“Graham?” He called out, into the lounge and the hall.  
"Shut up!" Jean groaned from her bedroom, pulling the covers over her head.  
"Graham?" He asked again, this time more urgently.  
The kitchen was spotless, Graham had been there, he knew. The contents of last night’s hasty Count on Us ready meal were nowhere to be seen. Every surface sparkled. Graham couldn’t bear blemishes, and often spent his time wandering around with a cloth, agitatedly rubbing specks of grease off the marble.  
He goes into the kitchen, which is spotless.  
"Graham?" He leans down to check the secret cupboard, "you've definitely been here."  
He stands up thoughtfully.  
"Graham?!"  
"For God's sake!" Jean snaps, pulling herself out of bed, grabbing her dressing gown.  
"Do you have to be so loud?" She leans on the balcony style rail of the landing.  
"Jean, have you seen Graham?"

"Not since yesterday. I was asleep by the way!"  
"Whatever," Joe waves a dismissive hand as he gets out his phone.  
"Graham Foster, leave a message."  
"Graham," Joe lowers his voice, "I know today is a difficult day for you, but I'm here if you need to talk, or whatever."  
"Just, give me a call, let me know you're okay, yeah?"  
Jean wandered into the kitchen.  
"He didn't answer?"  
"Well done, Sherlock."  
"No need to be sarcastic." Jean grabs orange juice from the fridge.  
"Now what are you going to do?"  
"I don't know, Jean!" Joe snapped, "I just..."  
"Joe," Jean tries to sympathise.  
"Leave it, Jean."  
"Joe, please."  
"You have no idea what it..."  
"I know he is your..."  
"What?" Joe turns on her, "what do you think he is?"  
"You're very close, I get it."  
"No you don't. You have no idea what its like. Just because your life is so simple, doesn't mean everyone else's is."  
Jean stared at him, hurt.  
"Never thought you could be so cruel."  
"Well, surprise! Because here's the real me!"  
"This isn't you." Jean surmised, "this is down to him!"  
"He has a name." Joe warned her.  
"Don't I know it! Every waking minute I hear you calling out, "Graham! Graham!"  
"Careful, Jean. You sound like you might just be jealous."  
"Jealous?" Jean scoffed, "you've spent most of your life attached to him like some kind of puppet!"  
Joe's face contorted, twisting nastily.  
"Let's get one thing straight. Graham is not a puppet. Nor am I."  
"You spend most of your time walking around with him as your shadow! You don't need to be dragged into this. Into his troubles."  
"Stop talking."  
"As if it isn't bad enough that half the village hate you because of your incapacity to show any human feeling!"  
"Let me make this clear to you." Joe's voice turned soft, dangerous. "Graham has been there for me when no one else could be bothered. I was on the brink of being expelled and Aunt Zoe had no idea what to with me. Just like dad, she said. Graham listened, Jean. He established a connection, a drive in me to do better. He took care of me when no one else wanted to; when Zoe washed her hands of me." He paused, "so yeah, I care about Graham. He cares about me and as far as I'm concerned, his troubles are my troubles. Nothing else matters. I saved his life? He saved mine."  
Jean stared at him, feeling sick.  
"I'm sorry."  
"Don't."  
"So next time you open your mouth, just think about that."  
"Joe..."  
"No. We're done."  
He walks away, pulling on his jacket.  
"I'm going to find him."  
"Are you sure thats a good idea?" Jean asked, concerned.  
"Whats it to you? You have a low opinion of him."  
"I was just..."  
"Well, don't." Joe snapped, "go back to rainbows and unicorns."  
He slammed the door.


End file.
